


although i'm not making plans (i hope you understand there's a reason why)

by brokendevil



Series: prompts, one-shots and other drabbles [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, It's not exactly "M" worthy but they're sleeping together, slight mentions of sex but it's fairly mild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7193831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokendevil/pseuds/brokendevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She moves away from you completely and shakes her head because to her it’s not okay, and you know that too.</p><p>Or</p><p>Clarke and Lexa have been in love for months but they just call it "sleeping together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	although i'm not making plans (i hope you understand there's a reason why)

**Author's Note:**

> I gave myself a challenge to write 5000 (or so) words before bed. Sorry if it's bad, but I hope you like it.

**PART ONE.**

 

When you wake up it’s to the sensation of a soft chest against your back and a clammy hand pressed against your lower stomach. Cuddling is sweet and all, and you kind of like it because Lexa is practically a koala in the way she clings to you, but it’s California and it’s August and it’s way too hot to be surrounded with your combined sticky heat. 

Shifting in her arms so that you can turn to face her, you wait for Lexa to wake and you smile as her usual morning routine comes into play. She always wakes in stages; first her brows crinkle in annoyance at being pulled from sleep, then she licks between her full lips and heaves in a deep sigh like she’s trying desperately to remember how to breathe. After that comes the tightening and loosening of her muscles and you watch in fascination as the sheet lowers on her body while she extends her limbs and she rolls onto her back, her bare chest and toned stomach on completely display to your starving eyes. By the time she flutters her eyes open, only to promptly shut them tightly against the light as always, you’re laying on your side with your head propped in your hand and she laughs when she finally looks at you. 

“Don’t even think about it,” she smiles and her voice is thick with sleep which only makes you feel sluggish and lazy and you really just want to fold yourself around her until you both forget about everything beyond these sheets. “Clarke. We have to meet everyone for lunch and we haven’t even showered yet.” 

You look at your clock and notice it’s only 10:03, you have time. “So we shower together, what’s the issue?” 

She gives you a look that reminds you that you have never once, not in the eight months you’ve been doing this, ever managed to ‘just shower’ together. There was a bruise on your shoulder blade to prove it for weeks and you had laughed when Lexa had gone out, quite intently, with the idea of buying a shower mat. 

“How about we just don’t go?” You try once more because you know she crumbles easily against your words, and maybe you’ve used that to your advantage on more than one occasion, but she just sits up in your bed and you feel your mouth go dry as your eyes scan down from the bare expanse of her back, to the dip in her spine, to the curve of her -- 

“Octavia was pretty adamant that we were both there today and I don’t want to let her down. You and your mouth has caused us to cancel on her one too many times and eventually she’s going to work it out.”

Though her tone is light you feel your mouth go dry for an entirely different reason and you flop back onto your bed as she gathers her clothes and winks at you while she steals one of your many towels. Your roommate, Raven, is out with her boyfriend Wick and that was the only reason Lexa was willing to stay over and why she’s so comfortable strolling through your apartment naked. The thought makes you sigh and you frown at a damp patch on your ceiling, both pissed that it’s there and confused about the brunette currently singing in your shower.

You’d both been doing this for far too long and you weren’t sure what was happening anymore. At first it had been a thrill. The four of you--Lexa, Octavia, Raven and yourself--had all been friends in college and there had been a few drunken kisses (between all of you truthfully) but nothing had really developed until later. It was on your twenty-second birthday that it had escalated and you’d ended up in bed together, panting and laughing and wondering why it hadn’t happened before. Hiding it from Octavia and Raven had been fun; secret kisses in alleyways, trysts in the elevator in your apartment complex, sneaking in and out of windows and hiding in closets--which had made Lexa laugh so hard her braids had frizzed--it was hot, a turn on. 

But now it was eight months later and you have to wonder, when did it stop being fun for you and start being a serious relationship? 

You know that it’s not serious for Lexa, she’d said it several times before, and you’re pretty sure that she’s trying to keep things light so that she doesn’t hurt you. Because you’ve seen the guilt on her face when you hold her hand a little too long in front of your friends and she pulls away and you’ve heard the waver in her voice when you try and bring up the subject and she cuts you off with  _ “Don’t, Clarke.”  _ You  **know** she isn’t trying to hurt you but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t. 

These thoughts need to leave though and you know it, you can’t linger on them or let them build because you know you’ll ruin what you have now. Even if you can’t have all of her you can have a part of her, and that’s more than losing her completely. You push yourself out of bed and stride to the bathroom, unashamed in your nudity, and open the door. It’s already steamed up, Lexa has the hottest showers you’ve ever witnessed, and you laugh at her horrible rendition of some band you know she likes but you’ve never heard of. 

You open the shower door and step inside, hissing at the scalding water that strikes your pale skin, before you reach around her to make it cooler. She doesn’t protest and she doesn’t even look remotely surprised that you’re here, if anything she looks like she’d grown bored waiting for you, and in this light you can see the marks you had left on her collarbones the night before. 

“We have to be out of this apartment by eleven-thirty,” she tells you quite seriously and you nod, lifting her hand to press kisses against each of her fingers in an attempt to distract her. She catches your eyes and you smile at her as you raise an eyebrow, biting the tip of her index finger as she shifts slightly so that the water falls mostly on her back and the heat doesn’t irritate your skin like she knows it will. “Clarke, we said we would be there by twelve. No later.” 

You breathe out a chuckle at that because you know she hates being late and you attempt to distract her by guiding her hand down your body and pressing your fingers against the back of hers as you move her hand between your legs. You moan into her mouth at the same time that she flexes against you experimentally. “Make it quick then, Woods.”

* * *

Okay so you were late but you had told her you would take the blame completely and really it’s  **her** fault that you’re moving so slow because it still sort of aches when you walk and she’s practically  _ sprinting  _ down the sidewalk.

One round in the shower turned into a second as you were getting dressed turned into a third when you had pounced on her in the kitchen when she jokingly put your snapback on.  You enjoyed it all the same but all Lexa could register was that you were late and you smirked to yourself because  _ so worth it. _

You enter the restaurant just after her and smile softly at her repeated apologies to an even more amused Octavia and an uncaring Raven -- who seemed to be grinning a little too wide at the woman sat next to her. Both women were more than used to you coming in late and they’d even taken to giving you the wrong time to turn up to a place, usually an hour earlier than what everyone else would meet, to ensure you actually turned up on time. Having that ace in your pocket had calmed Lexa down a little but she still worried that they’d question why you were late ‘together’ and you’d rolled your eyes. 

“My bad,” you wave at them, sitting down opposite Octavia--with a slight wince, God  _ what had she done to you _ \--and glancing cautiously at the stranger at their table. Lexa sits next to you, as always, and you place both of your bags on the spare chair next to you without prompt.  “I woke up late. I think Lexa was a few seconds from breaking my door down when I finally woke up.” 

Lexa visibly relaxes as your lie is easily bought with eyerolls and teasing and you cough into your hand as she, unsubtle and as blunt as always, turns to the stranger at the table. “Who are you?” 

“Lexa,” Raven starts and you already know you’re not going to like this, you know that look in Raven’s eye and the way Octavia is slouching back into her chair like she’s watching a damn sitcom and you press your fingers into your knee under the table. “This is Costia. She’s my physiotherapist.”

“Oh,” Lexa shrugs as she reaches for the menu, though you know she’ll always stick to what she knows, and you watch as she smiles at the new addition to their group for this particular lunch. “Nice to meet you. Is Raven as horrible at being a patient as she is at setting up blind dates?”

The table laughs at that and you swallow down whatever it is that you feel in your throat. You ignore how Raven defends herself-- _ ”I thought you’d hit it off!”-- _ and how Lexa commands the table with her jokes and her sarcastic comments. You ignore how Octavia prompts conversations between the two of them and how Costia looks completely enamored with your friend. 

You ignore how Lexa can see it too and does nothing at all to stop it.

* * *

 

Lexa leaves first. Her apartment is on the other end of the city and she makes her excuses about work but you know it’s because she hasn’t been home in two nights because of you and she doesn’t want any probing questions from her roommate. Costia mentions that she lives in the area too and you press harder into your knee when Lexa smiles, when she offers to walk her home, and you don’t meet her eyes when all she offers you is a goodbye. Instead you pretend to be on your phone and you act like you can’t hear the intake of air that she takes when she’s hurt or confused or angry with you.

How had you gone from scratching your name onto her back as you came around her fingers to feeling like she’d ripped out your insides and was currently dragging them down the street with Costia as they walked home together in just a matter of hours?

“Costia is nice. What do you guys think?” Octavia offers to the table when it’s just the three of them. 

A waiter comes to clear away Lexa and Costia’s items and you pay attention to him for just long enough to avoid the subject and you search blindly for an answer that won’t scream jealousy. He smiles at you and his nametag reads _Finn_ and he has pretty eyes which you let yourself look at for a moment too long. You smile back and you almost bite your lip as a subtle flirt but Lexa isn’t here to see it anyway and when you shift back to look at your friends you _ache_ again as a reminder of what had happened a few hours earlier. 

Raven agrees, smirking at you as she notices your interactions with Finn but she saves you by saying nothing about that. “I like her. She’s kind and sweet, I mean she’s really patient and probably the only reason I keep going back to physio.”

“Kind and sweet? You thought that would be a good match for Lexa?” The laugh that follows it is supposed to make the sentence sound less biting but all it does is make you sound annoyed and you rush to fix it when your friends glance at you in confusion. “You’ve met her, right? She’ll tear that girl in half.”

“That’s the aim,” Octavia laughs and accepts the high-five from Raven. You roll your eyes at both of them and this time Octavia catches it before pitching right back at you. “You know, you should talk a little nicer about your best friend Griffin. Costia could be good for her. All she does is work and you have to admit, she probably needs this distraction more than she’ll admit.”

Raven nods as she brings her water to her lips. “Yeah, opposites attract and all that.”

You don’t say anything and you reason that your friends are just trying to help. Octavia has been with Lincoln since they were fifteen--on and off--and Raven has been sleeping with Wick for over a year. You know that all they want what is best for the both of you and their constant attempts at trying to set you both up with people may have fallen flat most of the time, but you know they mean well. You know they just want you to be happy. 

But you’re pretty sure they’ve just sent your happiness away with someone else.

**PART TWO.**

 

Your legs swing from the bench in Raven’s shop and you smile at her around the lollipop in your mouth. You’re pretty sure your mouth is bright red from the candy but you’d finished work at the restaurant earlier than you thought you would, which were the kind of perks of being the owner came with, and you didn’t care about anything other than having a free evening. You trusted your assistant Murphy to run the show while you weren’t there, despite the fact that not all of your employees liked him that much, but you’d worked a sixty hour week the week before and you deserved this.

Also it had been over two weeks since Lexa had touched you and if one more customer complained about the food, of which there had been three complaints that day thanks to your distraction, you were going to dip their head in the fryers and ask them to tell you again if the oil was ‘dirty’. Your staff had noticed your mood and even though your little restaurant wasn’t exactly busy at such an early point in the week--(it was only a year old but people knew  _ Jake’s _ through word of mouth and you were doing okay)--they had suggested you go home so that you didn’t scare off any more potential custom. 

“Please, sit and stare while I try and work,” Raven drawled from inside the car she was working on. “It isn’t distracting at all.”

You don’t apologise but you do jump down from the bench, your heels clicking loudly on the stone floor and you wander around the building lazily. Any other day and you would have phoned Lexa, asked her to come over and then whispered dirty promises when she played hard to get. Her career as a financial consultant--whatever that was--meant that she was able to set her own hours, for the most part, and if she was free you knew you would always be able to call the woman and have her pressed between your thighs within the hour. 

But you’re not even sure if that is allowed now and you bite down against the candy aggressively as your thoughts turn to Costia and whether she has that’s her privilege these days. “Have you heard from Lexa lately?”

You don’t know why you ask. Raven never listens when she works and you know that even if she was listening, she’d turn it on you. You and Lexa have always been the closest, best friends, like sisters Octavia had once said. If anyone would have heard from Lexa you know it would have been you first and you almost take back your words before Raven finally replies. “Nah. She’s probably too busy with her head between Costia’s legs to pay any attention to us anymore. If you do speak to her though let her know I would appreciate some kind of thank you.”

You’re glad that Raven is inside the car because you stumble at her words, gripping onto the bench and holding yourself up as you try and not think about Lexa and Costia and the way Lexa moans just so when you touch her right. You wonder if Costia knows how Lexa trembles if you kiss her shoulder blades, if she knows that she’s ticklish behind her knee, if she knows that the scratching of nails down her stomach turns her into a submissive mess. 

You don’t  _ want  _ to know but you need to. If for nothing but your own piece of mind. 

* * *

Lexa comes over a few days later and presses you against your door before you even have the chance to greet her. She’s rough with her mouth, biting and relentless, and you feel your eyes water from how overwhelming she is. Usually you’re the one who is more willing to take charge, you’re the one to suggest something new or bite your nails in harder when she does something good, but you let her have this because she’s so clearly fighting with something and all you’ve ever wanted to do is give her peace.

Her hands are beneath your shirt and she doesn’t even bother removing it before she’s trailing them higher, beneath your bra, and finding your nipples with a satisfied groan into your open mouth. Everything aches again, your need for her growing, and your combined pants are echoing both around your apartment and inside your mind. She’s too much and not enough all at once and you find yourself tearing at the back of her neck, gripping at the loops in her jeans, and begging with your body to be closer, to feel her harder, to take it all. 

“Clarke,” she finally breathes out, pulling away to gasp breathlessly. Her forehead hits against yours and it’s not soft, it’s not like lazy Sunday mornings or when she finds you particularly funny. It’s confused and angry and desperate and you’re not sure how to fix it, you’re not sure the cure for this is written in any medical book your mother keeps in her office. “Clarke,  _ please. _ ”

You don’t realise how often she says your name until you had to go two weeks without hearing it. She says it in so many different ways; between gasps like you’re her final prayer, with amusement as you do yet another thing to keep that smile on her face, with awe as she looks over your art and your words and anything you feel like creating that day. 

It hurts when you bite at your lower lip, you hadn’t noticed before how rough her kisses had been, and you hiss quietly as you let it go. Instead of worrying her you cup her cheeks, lift her eyes to meet yours and you feel your heart pound again at how intense everything about her is. “Hey, I’m here. Baby I’m here.”

“Don’t,” she closes her eyes tightly and you’re fascinated with the way her bottom lip trembles. You shouldn’t be, you know that, but she’s so beautiful and open and you never get to see this side of her. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your...I don’t deserve --”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why she’s so upset and your heart sinks.

“It’s okay,” you finally say because, the truth is, it is okay. It might sting a little and you’re sure you’re having trouble breathing, but it’s okay. Because you and Lexa aren’t anything, you never established what you were, and even if you can’t wrap your mind around the fact that Lexa,  _ your Lexa,  _ has kissed another person; it’s okay. 

She moves away from you completely and shakes her head because to her it’s not okay, and you know that too.

 

* * *

Your eyes are closed when she settles into the bed next to you later that night and you can practically taste how nervous she is. It leaves a coating on your tongue, an acidic trail down your throat, and you feel it settle in your chest like a heavy heat. It burns you from the inside because you never wanted her to feel like this, but she brought it on herself.

“Why does it feel like I’ve cheated on you?”

Of the two of you, you hadn’t expected her to break the silence with something so serious and you press your lips together. You knew a long time ago that this wasn’t just sex to her, but it wasn’t completely serious either, and she’d tried so hard to balance everything so that she didn’t hurt you that she lost her footing. You don’t turn your entire body to face her, you can’t do that yet, but you look at her for a long time in silence as she works her jaw, works through her mind, works her fingers between each other. 

“I don’t know,” you admit because, as much as you want to, you can’t lie to her. You’ve never been able to lie to one another. “Why does it feel like you’ve cheated on me?”

It’s those words that seem to evoke the most reaction out of her and you don’t think you’ve ever seen someone crumble quite so viscerally like she does. You’ve seen it written hundreds of times, you’ve watched movies and shows and listened to music that tears at your soul, but you’ve never witnessed heartbreak before.

Not until you looked into the mirror an hour ago.

And not until you watched Lexa completely fall apart beneath her guilt. 

 

* * *

 

The next morning you make breakfast while she makes coffee and you’re not sure where you’re supposed to go from here.

 

**PART THREE**

 

Lexa doesn’t see Costia again and though you’re kind of relieved, you’re not surprised. Raven looks completely affronted when Lexa explains that while Costia was lovely--and you know she was, she just came at the wrong time for Lexa and maybe in another world she’d have been perfect--they just didn’t work together. Octavia looks at you like you holds all of Lexa’s secrets and you just give a little shrug because you’re not her keeper, you’re not her  _ anything.  _

Later when lunch is over, and Lexa claims that she needs to finish some work to get out of walking with Octavia towards the part of the city they live in, you find the courage to send her a genuine smile. She really didn’t do anything wrong but it had hurt like nothing had hurt before and she knew that, she knew to give you space. Your little smile gave her the key to come back and you watch her flush as she realises it. 

“They’re going to try and set us up with other people,” you say hours later when you’re both in your apartment. Both of your legs are covered by your favourite fur blanket (maybe it belonged to Lexa once upon a time but it’s yours now) and she’s eating ice-cream out of a mug. It’s not sexual but it’s intimate and it’s the first time in over a month that you’ve felt yourself begin to relax around her. 

She nods carefully and you love that you can see her as she processes her words, thinks about the right thing to say, looks at all outcomes. You love that her face is so easy to read, that she highlights everything with twitches on an eyebrow or the lock of her jaw. “I know,” Lexa hesitates for a moment and you wait patiently because words come easier to you than they do to her, they always have. “Have they tried to send you on a blind date yet?”

You nod because you really can’t lie to her and you almost laugh at how irritated she looks, both at herself and the situation. You can read her so well and you know she’s telling herself she’s not allowed to be annoyed but she so visibly is that you want to kiss her lips, the little dimple between her brows, and tell her to stop being a child. 

“Oh.”

“It was with the waiter from ARK,” you explain quietly and wait for her to work it out. You know she knows who you mean because Octavia and Raven are about as subtle as a stone through a window and they make sure to always ask for Finn to be their waiter and they always ask questions about his preference in hair colour on the opposite sex and if he is single. You know Lexa is usually too busy to notice your friends, too used to their antics, but you never fail to notice how her eyes narrow when the male lingers a little too long at your table. “Finn.”

“Oh.”

Part of you, a spiteful part, wants her to wallow and feel how you did. Feel that loss of control, that acceptance that you aren’t hers and she isn’t yours. You want her to feel like everything you are is sand and it’s too hard to grasp, too hard to keep, and yet it’s fucking everywhere. 

But you don’t. “I’m not going. He’s nice and I mean, he’s not exactly difficult to look at,” you smile, because he isn’t. Finn is nice. He has nice eyes and a smile that makes your belly swoop. But he’s not Lexa and she knows that and you know that. “I’m just not available for dating right now.”

That seems safe to settle on and Lexa seems to agree, if her little blush means anything important.

“You’re not?”

“Not yet.”

* * *

You finally sleep together again on a Tuesday night and it’s been almost two months. It’s not unlike the first time; too many shots of tequila, Octavia screeching something on karaoke and you find yourself locked in a heated gaze with your best friend. Lexa uses you as an excuse and you pretend to be a lot drunker than you really are in front of Raven before Lexa bundles you into the backseat of an Uber. Her hand is tracing patterns under the hem of your shorts before you’re even a block away and while you’re pretty sure you’re not the first girl to get touched up by someone they desperately need in the back of a cab, it’s not going to happen like this.

She relents when you push her hand away, always polite, but her lips move to your neck and you say her name like it’s the only thing you’ll ever need again. She’s trembling as she admits how much she’s missed you, as she whispers promises to only ever touch you, and you grip and pull and drag her so much closer. 

The address she’s given is her own and you barrel through her door loudly. Something bangs on the wooden floor, possibly a picture frame, maybe a vase, but you don’t care and you watch as she fumbles to close and lock the door. Her roommate isn’t in, she’d said that at the bar, but even if she was you’d still have dragged Lexa back to your lips like you were dying and you still would have moaned wantonly into the static air surrounding you.

Lexa is as greedy as she’s always been when she takes you but she’s affectionate, she’s passionate and responsive. She responds to your  _ harder, faster, deeper  _ moans and she gives and gives and gives until you’re sweaty and panting and sated. Her face is buried in your neck when you come for a second time around her fingers, like she’s the one who has just been ruined completely, and you can’t help but run your hands down her back soothingly. She has a few little scars on her shoulder blades, on her ribs, on her arms and she always shivers when you run your fingers over them repeatedly. 

You both have work in the morning but that’s tomorrow’s problem and you nudge her with your chin, coaxing her swollen lips back to your own. She’s still inside of you when you bite at her tongue and her fingers curl, causing you to shudder against her and you seal her smug smile against your lips to stop her annoying gloating.

For a second you let yourself wonder if she did any of this with Costia and you pause briefly, but she notices. Possibly in your kiss. Possibly because you know she loves you too.

“What are you doing to me?” Lexa asks and you look at her because, really, what are you supposed to say to that?

You reach down to pull her fingers out of you and regret it immediately, you feel yourself clench around nothing but she soothes you with a hand to your hip and a thigh between your legs. You can’t do this when it’s clearly about sex, when her fingers are covered in you and all you can think about is Lexa, Lexa,  _ please, fuck, Lexa… _

“I’m trying to get you to fall in love with me,” you smirk and you wonder, when everything about her seems to freeze and then unthaw quickly, if you’ve gone too far. But you’re tired of hiding and you’re tired of telling your friends you’re single but not ready to date and you’re tired of acting like Lexa isn’t yours. You’re innocent when you ask, “Is it working?”

This time, Lexa kisses the smug smile from your lips.

* * *

By the end of June you've both kind of given up pretending you're not something and fleeting glances become her holding your hand and swift kisses become you arriving  _everywhere_ together.

Octavia and Raven begin to notice some changes but for two girls who claim to "know everything" they're kind of slow on the uptake. You're all at lunch once more when Raven, and her ever narrowing eyes, begins to notice what is really going on and you feel yourself actually become nervous. If she asks you're still not sure what you're going to say, or how you're going to explain the months of lies, or why you were lying to start with. From you're point of view it was because you wanted Lexa to be yours, to work on the together thing without the input of your best friends, but you don't know why Lexa wanted it to be so hidden. You do know that she didn't want to lose you, that she didn't want to hurt you, and that's why she never put a label on it. A label was too easy to rip off and discard, she had once said. She didn't want to ever throw Clarke away--her unspoken  _or be thrown away_ was heard clearly. 

"Alright, what gives?"

You should have known Octavia would be the one to ask, especially because you were so focused and worried about Raven. You're heart fucking _sinks_ when you realise Lexa isn't there to help. "What do you mean?"

"You haven't agreed to one date in over ten months now," she sighs, clearly exasperated with you. You don't know why your love life is important to either of them but it is and now it's on the table and a topic of discussion. "Finn was nice. You didn't even think about him."

"And Niylah, she was hot."

"Yeah. Niylah too, and Roan."

"God, his arms."

"His eyes."

You frown at the display before you and, yes, you can appreciate that everyone they had tried to set you up with had been hot and talented and lovely. But they didn't work, they didn't match, they didn't hold your hand and make you feel special. "I'm fine."

"Okay but consider this," Raven began, resting her chin against her fingers and looking at you like she was about to impart some wisdom that she's probably stolen from Dr. Phil or a trashy magazine in her mechanics waiting room. "You're not fine."

"I am!"

"How can you be fine? You've not had sex in over a year," Octavia declares and you want the seat you're in to collapse or a vortex to steal you away from this situation. She lowers her voice like the next part is the scandalous part and you remind yourself to talk to Octavia about boundaries and public appropriate conversations when she says, "Are you not lonely?"

"No."

You shake your head at the two of them and decide to move on. Daddy issues always bring the table together and you supply that you're thinking of dedicating a wall in  _Jake's_ to your dad.

Part of you is kind of glad you have a topic at hand that people are too sensitive to shift focus away from.

* * *

"I want more from this."

She shocks the hell out of you on a Friday night. There's red wine on her upper lip and her hair is too messy to even be considered hipster. Her long legs are folded this way and that beneath you and when you turn to look at her, to really see her, she looks just as shocked as you. 

"Lex..."

"I know I don't deserve it. I know I've made you wait and I've been such a bitch and I've done nothing to prove to you that I want you too but I do, Clarke, I do. I always have."

You study her for a long time and she grows nervous under your gaze, like a small child trying to hide a secret but you know she doesn't have anything left in her to hide. You took it all, bit by bit and patiently, but you took it and you ran with it. "I know you have," you reply carefully and you move to cup her cheek, to bring her closer to you on the bed and you try to kiss away that stubborn red stain that she doesn't even know she's wearing. "I know."

"I'm so sorry for everything I've ever done to you, Clarke," she whimpers, she  _fucking whimpers,_ and you knew when she smashed her own heart in your bed all those months ago that she was sorry. But this is the first time she's verbally said them without it being instinctive, or as a reaction to you finding out, and you feel your heart scatter in your chest. "I was scared and it was no excuse to leave you like I did. I thought what I was doing was right, I thought I was protecting both of us and I'm sorry."

"I know," you say again because you want more of her words, more of her admissions, because she never gives them to you. "I know."

"I've loved you for a long time and that scared me, but I have so much to give you and I think I could make you happy," she nods once like she's telling herself that. "I know I could make you happy."

You smile and bring your lips together again, swallowing her words and keeping them inside of you. 

"I know."

"Stop being a smart-ass and tell me I'm not alone."

You sigh your confessions into her mouth and you feel her store them in her heart just like you did.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

* * *

 

(You don't miss how days later, when you finally emerge from your bedroom and tell Raven and Octavia, your friends share a look before Raven reluctantly hands over a fifty-dollar bill.)


End file.
